Planning your next agile retrospective? Start with a random plan, change it to fit the team's situation, print it and share the URL. Or browse around for new ideas!
How did your right neighbour feel during the iteration Source: Fabián Lewkowicz
Ask each team member to try to briefly describe how their neighbour to the right felt during the iteration. Their neighbour confirms or corrects their guess. Once all participants said what they think about how their teammates felt, you get an idea of how connected they are, how the communication is flowing in your team and if people are aware of the feelings expressed, in some way, by others.
Collect examples for something old, new, borrowed and blue Source: Jordan Morris, via Todd Galloway
Analogue to an anglo-american wedding custom ask the team to give examples for the following categories:
Something Old Positive feedback or constructive criticism on established practice
Something New Positive feedback or constructive criticism on experiments in progress
Something Borrowed Tool/idea from another team, the Web or yourself for a potential experiment
Something Blue Any blocker or source of sadness
One example per sticky note. There's only one rule: If someone contributes to the 'Something Blue' column, s/he must also have a positive comment in at least 1 other column.
Everyone posts their stickies in the appropriate column on the board and describes it briefly.
Prepare a flip chart with 3 columns titled 'What', 'Who', and 'Due'. Ask one participant after the other, what they want to do to advance the team. Write down the task, agree on a 'done by'-date and let them sign their name. If someone suggests an action for the whole team, the proposer needs to get buy-in (and signatures) from the others.
Prepare 3 flip chart papers titled 'Helped', 'Hindered', and 'Hypothesis' (suggestions for things to try out). Ask participants to help you grow and improve as a facilitator by writing you sticky notes and signing their initials so that you may ask questions later.
Corinna wished for something like Retromat during her Scrummaster years.
Eventually she just built it herself in the hope that it would be useful to others, too.
Any questions, suggestions or encouragement?
You can email her or
follow her on Twitter.
If you like Retromat you might also like Corinna's blog and her summaries on Wall-Skills.com.
